- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its response to the report of the Task and Finish Group on Temporary Accommodation, how many households will be directly lifted out of temporary accommodation due to the proposed national acquisition programme.
Answer
The answer to S6W-20289 on 16 August 2023 makes clear that we are currently unable to say how many households will be directly lifted out of temporary accommodation.
All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 July 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many property acquisitions are expected to be supported through the £60 million allocated to the national acquisition programme, and what modelling has been conducted to support this.
Answer
Currently we have not undertaken any modelling and do not have an estimate of property acquisitions likely to be supported. All acquisitions will align with Local Housing Strategies.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether its national acquisition programme will be subject to the Scottish Government’s Principles for Programme and Project Management, and what the programme's relationship will be with the affordable housing supply programme.
Answer
As stated in the answer to S6W-20375 on 16 August 2023, the national acquisition programme will be run as part of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme which aligns with the Scottish Government’s Principles for Programme and Project Management.
All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 16 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its response to the report of the Task and Finish Group on Temporary Accommodation, what proactive work the Scottish Government will take to identify ways to boost the number of allocations to homeless households in stock transfer authorities.
Answer
A series of meetings, both at a political and official level, are underway to engage with local authorities on the Scottish Government’s response to the recommendations of the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group. We are aware that there are some areas of the country where this work is less urgent, such as local authorities where registered social landlords (RSLs) have a low supply of stock or the type of stock is not in demand.
We are working with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Glasgow West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations and other partners to identify ways to target action on the local authorities with the greatest temporary accommodation pressures, including some stock transfer authorities. We will report on outcomes from these discussions in due course.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 1 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on the review of the Home Owners' Support Fund to date, and how many FTE staff members have been allocated to the review.
Answer
The policy review work is being led by civil servants as part of their overall role of policy development and operational delivery. As such there are no costs that have been incurred. Two full-time equivalent policy team officials are working on the review as part of their wider duties with support from other officials, including analysts, as required.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 1 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the Home Owners’ Support Fund, what the average processing time has been for (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful applications in each quarter since April 2022, and how many applications in each quarter took (i) less than one year, (ii) one to two years, (iii) two to three years and (iv) more than three years to process.
Answer
The following table shows the average processing times for the cases which settled during each quarter since April 2022 and how many of those were processed within the requested timescales.
| | | Number of Successful Applications Processed in |
Financial Year | Quarter | Average Processing Time (Months) | < 1 Year | 1-2 years | 2-3 years | > 3 years |
2022-23 | Q1 | 21 | | 3 | 1 | |
| Q2 | 25 | | | 2 | |
| Q3 | 23 | | | 1 | |
| Q4 | 20 | | 2 | | |
2023-24 | Q1 | 19 | | 3 | 1 | |
Applications are taking longer to process at the moment as we continue to work to clear the backlog of existing cases that built up during the pandemic when restrictions prevented visits to properties for valuations or repairs assessments.
In addition, the voluntary nature of the scheme relies on the co-operation and goodwill of applicants, money advisers, landlords, lenders and Trustees. There can be complexities relating to the property valuations process, repairs inspections, debt negotiation/ consolidation and legal conveyancing that are not within our control.
The Scottish Government does not collect data in relation to the turnaround of unsuccessful applications.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 1 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) enquiries about and (b) applications to the Home Owners' Support Fund it has received in each quarter since April 2022, broken down by the (i) Mortgage to Rent and (ii) Mortgage to Shared Equity scheme, and, of those applications that were received, how many were (A) successful and (B) ineligible.
Answer
All applications to HOSF are tested for eligibility for both Mortgage to Rent (MtR) and Mortgage to Shared Equity (MtSE). Due to the circumstances of individuals there have been no Mortgage to Shared Equity cases since 2015, in particular many applicants have high levels of complex unsecured debts and low earnings.
The following table shows the number of applications received during each quarter since April 2022 and the number of applications successfully completed. Mortgage to Rent is a voluntary scheme and participation from applicants, lenders, trustees and social landlords is required for a case to succeed.
| Mortgage to Rent Applications* |
Financial Year | Quarter | Received | Completed | Ineligible |
2022-23 | Q1 | 9 | 4 | 0 |
| Q2 | 13 | 2 | 0 |
| Q3 | 12 | 2 | 0 |
| Q4 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
2023-24 | Q1 | 12 | 4 | 0 |
*Figures for received, completed and ineligible do not necessarily refer to the same cases.
The Scottish Government does not collect information on enquiries to the Home Owners Support Fund (HOSF).
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 1 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether its review of the Home Owners' Support Fund has modelled any impact of mortgage rates reaching 6.5%, in light of reports of this happening.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10237 on 7 September 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 10 July 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 1 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government for what reasons it has not updated the Parliament on the progress of its review into the Home Owners' Support Fund.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17723 on 17 May 2023. Parliament will be updated once the review has completed. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 July 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 31 July 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how many tenancies currently in operation may not be covered by the rent cap.
Answer
The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 aims to ensure that the majority of tenants living in the private rented sector are protected by the temporary, emergency measures.
Tenancies under the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 are exempt from the temporary rent cap, and there are only a small number of remaining tenancies under this Act. For these tenancies, rent increases can only occur every 3 years and the restrictions on rent increases already built into the system operate to ensure rents in respect of the 1984 Act are raised at fair levels.
Certain tenancies under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988 are not covered by the rent cap. The Housing (Scotland) Act 1988, as amended by Schedule 1 of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, sets out that the rent cap will apply to rent increases during the course of assured and short assured tenancies, except in the case of an exempt tenancy ( ). Common law tenancies are also not included, for example, agricultural tenancies.
We do not centrally hold data on the total number of tenancies described above, so it is not possible to provide the number of tenancies currently in operation that are not covered by the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 rent cap measures.